Memory Alpha talk:Category tree
General discussion This is taking forever This is taking forever. The current (IMO logical) suggestions can be made in a preliminary catergory tree, so we can get underway categoring (or whatever the word is) all pages. besides, even if we make one mistake, we can allways edit. Nothing's written in stone. We should get started. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 16:20, 13 Sep 2004 (CEST) I've created a preliminary version in the main article. This should serve to clarify this discussion and help draw out more discussion so this proces will be finished this century. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 15:55, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) :I moved your suggestion to this page instead. IMO, the article itself should be reserved for the final version to avoid confusion. -- Cid Highwind 16:02, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) Fundamental Categories So, first things first, then. What should the fundamental categories (those at the top (or bottom, depending on how you view it) of the tree) be? I think they should follow the same setup as the current Main Page divisions: *'People' *'Society and Culture' *'Science and Technology' *'Space Travel and Hardware' *'Around the Universe' (this would include the Timeline) *'Meta-Trek' (this can encompass Episodes and Movies, Other Sources, and the Production Crew section of People) This would only leave Reference Tables uncovered - that should get a category of its own, but not a fundamental one. I was aiming for something snappier, like "People, Places, Races, Ships"... but it wasn't 'inclusive' enough. :D -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 03:00, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST) : That looks good to start with, Michael. I would suggest calling the last one Production Information. I've never liked the term "Meta-Trek", to be honest. : Something that's important to mention is that articles are allowed to be included in multiple categories. Therefore, an article for Captain Sisko might be listed in Category:Main character and Category:Starfleet officer. : I'd also suggest we have a single overriding category for "Episode" and a single overriding category for "Timeline". For the former, it might make sense to break them down by series, but we've already got a full listing of the series links thanks to the browser bar that's part of each episode page's template. : So, here's my fleshed-out idea for the starting category tree: * People ** Main Characters ** Recurring Characters ** Guest Characters ** Starfleet Officers ** ... * Society and Culture * Science and Technology (includes "hardware") * Space Travel ** Starships ** Shuttlecraft * Around the Universe * Production Information ** Actors and Actresses ** Writers and Staff ** Directors : I think that's about all for now. I'm sure I'll think of more ideas later on, of course... ;-) -- Dan Carlson | Talk 15:45, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST) ::Yeah, as I say, it makes sense to follow the setup we have arranged on the Main Page at the moment, then filtering down into the subsections that have been set up in the same manner - that way we keep the same 'directory tree' that has already been established, allowing an easy replacement system as the categories roll out. ::As for the episodes, I still think we should link them into the background area, divide by series then season. A single category would get rapidly overpopulated (of course, like the series/season pages at the moment, each episode can be categorised in both). -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 17:06, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST) The simplest (and perhaps best) way, would be to create as head categories People, Around the Universe etc.., make Main Characters, Starships etc.. subcategories, and create seperate subcategories in those for each series: Category:TOS Recurring characters, sub of Recurring Characters, sub of People. The easiest way to get this started would be to simply go to the main page and replace People with Category:People, and fan out from that. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 16:48, 3 Sep 2004 (CEST) :Which is what has already been suggested. Except that categories are not yet enabled. Replacing the Main Page classification now would a) be futile and b) risk losing the data we have already by cutting the pages adrift. Populate the categories first, then, once that is done to a sufficiently acceptable state, we can replace the standard headings. Don't start jumping the gun. The standard system has served us well so far. -- Michael Warren | ''Talk'' 16:57, Sep 3, 2004 (CEST) I would take what you have suggested and modify it slightly: *Characters (would you think of all Xindi as "people"?) *Society and culture *Science and technology (incl. "space travel") *Around the universe *Production information *Reference *Memory Alpha (include community and fan stuff) I think "Characters" might be preferred if the "Production information" is kept in its own section. Also, I would think the space ships are considered "technology" for the purpose of classification. —Mike 09:22, Sep 30, 2004 (CEST) :I don't know if a simple top-down approach is enough to get things going in this case. Perhaps we should collect all possible category suggestions in a "wishlist" and create a structure later? -- Cid Highwind 11:00, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) :::Well, I think that "beings" is preferable to "people" or "characters" then, but I like "characters" the least. I know that "locations" are still being discussed, but would there be any problems with starting to add category elements to technology and starships, and then use the categories special page to tweak the structure as it gets added to? There hasnt been any work on suggestions for categories in two months, maybe pushing forward and starting might give us momentum to get the larger structure organized? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 18:47, 7 Dec 2004 (CET) :::: I strongly recommend to restrict it to a field test first, when we introduced the categories in MA/de we noticed quite a lot do not make sense and must be moved. Also on a side notice, when looking at the suggested categories I saw they are all in plural, again something which makes no sense. -- Kobi 19:18, 7 Dec 2004 (CET) Singular vs. Plural category titles Copied from somewhere else on this page: :Wikipedia uses both singular (to list "topics relating to", similar to "see also" sections) and plural category titles (to list "instances of", a.k.a. "list categories") - in our case "Planets" would be a list of all planets (but nothing else), while "Planet" could contain articles like planetary classification (but probably wouldn't link to each and every planet). We may choose a different naming convention, of course, but I think it makes sense if we are allowing "list categories" to exist. -- Cid Highwind 20:26, 2004 Dec 25 (CET) We should come to an agreement here, soon - preferably before the first single categories suggested above are created. I like the convention of having plural titles for lists and singular titles for "related topics" and would like to see this implemented on MA as well. Does someone disagree? -- Cid Highwind 20:28, 2004 Dec 28 (CET) :I don't. I also agree that we should 'get a move on'. I haven't been participating in much of these discussions (I still had DNS troubles at the time). I think we need one big final election in the near future, and stick to it. I think we just have to come to some form of compromise. -- Harry 14:08, 30 Dec 2004 (CET) ::I don't think "one big final election" is appropriate regarding categories (or even possible - we don't even know which general structure should be the result; it surely isn't a single tree, for example). By making one small step at a time, a consensus seems to be much easier to achieve. We can also use those first categories to test the usefulness of further categories or category structures. ::Regarding the original topic: Any further comments regarding plural categories? Anyone? :) -- Cid Highwind 14:48, 2004 Dec 30 (CET) Reminder - no new categories, please I will answer to the discussion above later (when I have the time), but meanwhile... Could you please stop creating new categories and adding too many articles to the already existing ones? This discussion was started explicitly to come to an agreement before categories are created - let's just keep that in mind. The existing ones (Performers,TOS performers, TS1P, TS2P, TS3P) should be enough for testing purposes, and I also see some minor problems with them already. Thanks. -- Cid Highwind 09:47, 21 Dec 2004 (CET) :Categories appear to require a level of user consensus that seems unlikely to occur. I have come to wonder if they're even a good idea... -- Balok 00:36, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) Do we need to break this page up? MediaWiki warned me about editing this page; that some browsers might have trouble because it is so large. I have had no difficulty (using Firefox 1.0), but it would be a shame to lock someone out inadvertently. -- Balok 02:02, 28 Dec 2004 (CET) :The page is quite large, but all different sections are still active, so I see no easy way to archive some of the content at the moment. I also think that most modern browsers are able to handle this page size, and "section editing" (is that feature activated by default, I don't know?) should solve the problem for anyone else. Some of the content should be archived later, of course. -- Cid Highwind 20:21, 2004 Dec 28 (CET) :Perhaps the sections could be moved to subpages? Dma 02:18, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) Category tree suggestions Note: Only the mentioned user should edit his suggestion. Add comments to the appropriate "Discussion" subsection. Suggestion A (Redge) * Characters ** Main Characters ** Recurring Characters ** Guest Characters * Locations ** Stars ** Planets *** Homeworlds *** Alpha Quadrant Planets *** Beta Quadrant Planets *** Gamma Quadrant Planets *** Delta Quadrant Planets ** Nebulae ** Clusters ** Sectors ** Other Objects ** Space *** Neutral Space *** Borg Space *** Cardassian Space *** Federation Space *** Klingon Space *** Romulan Space * Society and Culture * Science and Technology * Space Travel and Hardware ** starships ** shuttlecraft * Around the Universe ** Timeline * Production Information ** Actors and Actresses ** Writers and Staff ** Directors * Reference * Memory Alpha Discussion of suggestion A A problem I have with this tree is the fact that some articles would exist in different subcategories of the same category. Earth, for example, would belong to Locations - Planets - Alpha Quadrant planets and Locations - Space - Federation space. IMO, it would be preferable to have one category for the "cartographic" structure (Cartography - Alpha&Beta quadrant - Federation space) and another one for the "astronomical" structure (Astronomy - Planet - Homeworld). -- Cid Highwind 16:23, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) I think it'd be better to separate "space travel" (starships, starship classes, space stations) from "hardware", and split "science" from "technology", and then just put the hardware with technology, since those two basically cover the same kinds of things. This would avoid a lot of overlap since science and technology aren't the same subjects, and space travel hardware is "technology" by definition anyway. -- EtaPiscium 18:38, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) **I agree that a with those splits. It makes absolute sense to separate science from technology, and then put hardware and spacetravel under that. (Toddas 17:34, 18 Oct 2004 (CEST)) Suggestion B1 (Cid Highwind) I suggest the following category tree for planets (see Talk:Stellar Cartography). This could replace the several existing Lists of ___ planets. *Locations or Places **Planets ***Uninhabited planets ***Inhabited planets ****Homeworlds ***Federation planets ***Klingon planets ***Romulan planets ***... Each planet could then belong to one of the first three subcategories (uninhabited, inhabited, homeworld) plus one of the 'affiliations' (or to category:planets directly, if nothing is known about the planet). -- Cid Highwind 14:37, 6 Sep 2004 (CEST) :I've never liked the "inhabited planets" distinction. At what point is a planet "inhabited"? Does a planet with nothing but an outpost or a starbase where there is only a "semi-permanent" population count as "inhabited"? What about planets that were inhabited but aren't any longer? I think it'd be better if it were just sorted on jurisdiction, i.e. Federation, Klingon, etc. This would also sort planets in a single system together even if one is inhabited and the other is not. :Also, I think calling the categories "planets" is too restrictive. It doesn't include stars, star systems, nebulae, or any other space object that could be considered a "place". I suggest: :*Stellar Cartography :**Stars :**Planets :***Homeworlds :***Minor bodies :**Nebulae :**Clusters :**Sectors :**Other objects :**Neutral space :**Federation space :**Klingon space :**... :Each planet, star, star system, nebula, comet, etc could be categorized in one of the first general categories, and then in an additional category for location if applicable -- EtaPiscium 06:36, 25 Sep 2004 (CEST) ::XXX space categories are a good suggestion. What exactly does "Planets -> Minor bodies'" mean, though? -- Cid Highwind 11:00, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) :::Minor bodies -- I was thinking moons, planetoids, comets, asteroids, etc. I'm not that comfortable lumping those under "planets" if we can help it. -- EtaPiscium 18:32, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) Discussion of suggestion B1 Even now, there are several different suggestions for location categories, for example Alpha Quadrant planets or Federation space. One could think of more, such as Sol sector or even Sol system. Some questions: *How detailed should these categories become? **'X space' seems to be a good one, Y sector might be useful in some cases - it should not be created for every sector. *How should these categories be arranged? **First, I don't like the category X Quadrant planets, for the reasons stated above by EtaPiscium. We should use one "Quadrant" category for everything (additionally, Alpha/Beta should be combined in one category). In that case, should (for example) Federation space be a subcategory of Alpha&Beta quadrant, or should both categories be on the same level? -- Cid Highwind 16:12, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) Suggestion B2 (Cid Highwind) still incomplete... ---- *Astronomy **Stars **Planets **Moons **Nebulae **Clusters **Sectors (Note: A list of sectors. Each sector would go here and to an appropriate subcategory of Stellar Cartography.) **... ---- *Stellar Cartography **Alpha&Beta quadrant (Note: Should be combined. We often don't know the correct quadrant exactly.) ***Federation space ***Klingon space ***Romulan space ***... **Gamma quadrant ***... **Delta quadrant ***... Discussion of suggestion B2 This incomplete suggestion avoids the problem I see with suggestion A. Each object (planet, moon, ...) would appear once in an "Astronomy" subcategory and once in a "Cartography" subcategory. I will add more later. -- Cid Highwind 16:36, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) I'd recommend just having "homeworlds" under "planets", and then putting all other planets under the general "planets" category. This avoids the semantics of "what constitutes a colony" vs outposts, settlements, camps, multiple colonies, former colonies, etc. If necessary, the names of actual colonies themselves could be put in another category under "Planets", like "Locations", which could also include cities, land-forms, provinces, etc. -- EtaPiscium 18:44, 1 Oct 2004 (CEST) :I don't think that city, province, colony etc. would be valid sub-categories of planet. All those are "has a" relations ("planet has a city"), but what we should try to create (IMO) are "is a" relations ("homeworld is a planet"). As such, colony world would still be a valid category, and I think also an important one, because there are _many_ colony worlds... -- Cid Highwind 15:50, 4 Oct 2004 (CEST) ::Well, would "colony world" be articles about the colony itself, or about the planet that the colony is on? I think that in many cases it's difficult to determine whether a planet counts as a "colony world". Are we including all planets that were colonized at some point? Or just all planets that currently have a "colony" (with all the terminology pitfalls I mentioned before)? ::Also, I think the whole "colony" article vs. "colony world" article is something that still needs to be clarified. If it was the actual name of the colony itself and not the planet, then I think it qualifies in the same category as a city since most colonies become cities anyway when the planet gets to a certain level of development. -- EtaPiscium 19:40, 4 Oct 2004 (CEST) :::OK, I removed "colony world" from my suggestion - this as well as the "(un)inhabited planets" can continue to exist as a list. Further comments? -- Cid Highwind 23:19, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::I like this format; it limits the possible categories that anything astronomical might fall into, and the categories are very clear so there'll be only a few cases where a something's placement might be debated. I agree that additional groupings such as "homeworld" can exist in their current list form. -- EtaPiscium 09:33, 23 Dec 2004 (CET) :::::Thanks for your reply. Regarding subgroupings as lists, I think any such list article should be placed in the category as well. We can use "sort keys" to include those at the top of the list, for example: List of Homeworlds (note the leading blank)... Further comments/objections? Anyone? -- Cid Highwind 10:45, 23 Dec 2004 (CET) :::::Technically, any article (or category) can be in any number of categories, according to Mediawiki's categorization. Hence, it is technically a graph, not a tree. So Andoria could be in Category:Founding Members of the United Federation of Planets and Category:Planets. Dma 02:16, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) ::::::Well, the goal of this whole discussion is to find out what "makes sense", not "what's possible" - of course, each article might appear in several categories, but which categories (and connections between categories) are really useful. You theoretical example Category:Founding Members of the United Federation of Planets, for example, isn't a good category because it is too limited - a navigational template would be the better choice here. -- Cid Highwind 02:22, 2005 Jan 2 (CET) Suggestion C (Steve) Well, I'm resurrecting this dinosaur with a pseudo-suggestion. Back in the days when I was a contributor to the abortive Star Trek Novel Encyclopedia Project, I developed a list of categories that I never got around to proposing to the group. Obviously they need refinement because of what MA covers vs. what STNE covered, but here they are: * Characters (with MA's in-universe perspective, this way of organizing characters is probably not the way to go) ** Main Characters ** Recurring Characters ** Guest Characters ** Mentioned Characters * Life Forms ** Contemporary Species ** Noncorporeal Species ** Ancient Species ** Nonsentient Species *** Animals *** Plants *** etc. * Society and Culture ** Organizations (this could range from the Federation to the Lollipop Guild) ** Language (including alien terms, perhaps) ** Laws and Rituals ** Food and Beverages ** Religion and Philosophy ** Books ** Other Arts ** History ** Recreation * Science and Technology ** Theories and Principles ** Energy and Radiation ** Space-Time ** Physics and Chemistry ** Medicine and Xenobiology ** Military Technology ** Computers and Communications ** Propulsion and Transportation ** Other Machines and Devices * Space Travel ** Spaceships ** Spaceship types ** Space stations ** Other vehicles * Stellar Cartography ** Regions ** Nebulae ** Stars ** Planets *** Locations ** Subplanetary objects ** Other phenomena Obviously a lot of these could be further subdivided. -- Steve 23:16, 15 Dec 2004 (CET) Suggestion: Performers (Balok) This tree covers only performers, i.e. actors/actresses, and it's based on some work User:Captainmike did. I'm keeping the scope of this narrow, because it seems to me that we might be making a mistake by trying to build an entire category model at once. Maybe we could come up with a few good submodels, and then see where that takes us. A question: I noticed automation was used to change all the template invocations to remove "msg" from them, shortly after the 1.3 upgrade. If we do make a mistake on the category, and decide all of X should now be Y, could such a mechanism be used to faciliate that? Or would it have to be done manually? *Performer **TOS performer ***TOS season 1 performer ***TOS season 2 performer ***TOS season 3 performer ***TOS recurring performer (do we need/want this one?) **TNG performer ***TNG season 1 performer ***(etc.) ***TNG recurring performer (do we need/want this one?) **DS9 performer ***DS9 season 1 performer ***(etc.) ***DS9 recurring performer (do we need/want this one?) **VOY performer ***VOY season 1 performer ***(etc.) ***VOY recurring performer (do we need/want this one?) **ENT performer ***ENT season 1 performer ***(etc.) ***ENT recurring performer (do we need/want this one?) Comments? I think "TOS Season 1 performer" is too specific. Why not use two categories instead: "TOS performers" and "TOS Season 1" (which could be reused for episodes, for example). I'm also not too sure about the term "performers"... -- Cid Highwind 13:13, 19 Dec 2004 (CET) : I don't think this entire tree is really needed. It is too specific. A simple Category:Performer is enough, remember there is the Category:SER too... also note that categories should be an addition to the lists, not a replacement -- Kobi 15:01, 19 Dec 2004 (CET) ::Well I think that Category:TOS season 1 performers would be a natural evolution of List of TOS Season 1 guest actors -- as for "too specific," its a pretty large list already, so I think its justified. And if we made both episodes and performers into one category, you would have two different flavors of articles listed there. I don't like the sound of that. ::Additionally, the over-category "performers" would go ahead and list all guest actors and regulars, i find the term more useful because regulars arent guests, and so on, so we can put all actors and vocalists in the grouping. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 17:52, 19 Dec 2004 (CET) :::That's not quite what I meant. The problem I see is that "TOS season 1 performer(s)" (TS1P) would be logically derived from two different supercategories: :::*TOS -> TOS season 1 -> TS1P :::*TOS -> TOS performer(s) -> TS1P :::This is not a tree structure anymore. Using both supercategories instead of the one derived from them would solve this problem as well as the one concerning "recurring performers". Additionally, a specific category such as this wouldn't be as useful as the list, because the actors roles are missing. -- Cid Highwind 18:34, 19 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::That is presuming there is a way of cross-referencing the two category's to see which occur twice. Can this be done with mediawiki software? Also, I feel that the List of... are outdated now that the category has been invented. We should consider, at least the lists that give no other specific information than an alphabetical listing, letting the category's replace the Lists. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 19:08, 19 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::I'm not sure what 'TS1P' buys you. It's not as if categories inherit from other categories (i.e. TS1P would imply as well 'TOS season 1' and 'TOS performer'). Multiple inheritance is the proverbial double-edged sword. -- Balok 00:18, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) :::::It doesn't "buy" me anthing - it's just an abbreviation of the category you suggested... -- Cid Highwind 02:57, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::::The question I was asking, but did not phrase correctly is: what does a single category buy you that two categories don't? Or, another way, what's wrong with having both "TOS Season 1" and "TOS performers" as categories? -- Balok 16:29, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) ::The various subcategories mirror the existing pages that discuss guest stars for a specific season, as has been said above. I think a category like "performers" is too broad except as a design artifact (an abstract class, if you like). It seems to me that a good category should limit the articles to two or three screenfuls worth at the most. -- Balok 00:18, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) :::I think a "good" category shouldn't strive to limit its content in some arbitrary way, but represent a meaningful grouping of elements (obviously, since that basically is what "categorizing" means). "All performers" is such a meaningful grouping, "all TOS performers" might still be. "All TOS season 1 performers" is, in my opinion, too artificial to be a good category (and even creates the aforementioned problems with performers appearing in more than one season). -- Cid Highwind 02:57, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) ::How is that a problem. I honestly don't understand why it a "problem" to belong to more than one category, since I'd very much like to use the categories to cross reference performers who appeared in more than one season. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel :::What for, if I may ask? It's definitely useful to have a page listing all actors appearing in one of the series. It's also useful to have a page listing all actors appearing in a specific episode - we already have that list on the episode articles. Why would I want to read a list of actors appearing in some relatively arbitrary subset of episodes of one of the series. I just don't see how that would be worth the trouble. Regarding "problems", there are several that might be small enough each to ignore, but combined...? :::*'Less useful than a list' - any Category:X performers is less useful than its equivalent List of X actors, simply because the latter has additional information about the roles played and is able to list articles that haven't been created yet. Kobi brought it up before - categories aren't always a good replacement for lists. In this case, they aren't. :::::True, but it is more useful than a list because (if people are careful) it grows as articles are created. People forget to update lists. Sure, they could forget to add 'Category' to an article, but some kind of boilerplate could help with that. -- Balok 16:29, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::::This still doesn't change the fact that any such category wouldn't list the performers' roles as the existing "List of..." does. :::*'Artificial distinction' - what's the important difference between episode 3x26 and 4x01? Why should an actor performing in a cliffhanger be listed twice while someone appearing in every other episode during one season (e.g. Mayor Hayes) is listed just once? :::::See comment re:What is it useful for? -- Balok 16:29, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) :::*'Category overkill, part I' - over 30 "season categories" and 7 "supercategories"; is this really necessary? :::::Most performers will have just three categories (season, series, overall performer list). A few could have many more(like Combs), but why is that a problem? See also below. -- Balok 16:29, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::::The 30+7 categories would be needed to have one for each series (+movies) and one for each season. Nearly 40 pages just to categorize performers is overkill, isn't it? Regarding the way you want to categorize, see below. :::*'Category overkill, part II' - what about semi-regular characters, some of them could easily appear in 7 categories (Jeffrey Combs would appear in 9, I think); is this really necessary? ::::Yes. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 21:35, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) :::*'What is it useful for?' - If I'm reading an article about one of the actors, why would I want to know which seasons he appeared in. The roles he played are the interesting part, not when he played them. If I'm searching for a specific actor, I'd either read the episode or character article or search through the generic "list/category of actors". In that case, I wouldn't want to read seven lists instead of one. :::::You're implicitly assuming, in this sentence, that everyone drills for information the same way you do, or perhaps that the way you do research is the only worthwhile way. That isn't the case. You wouldn't have to read seven lists, because the one list you want would be the supercategory for the series. So you can research your way, and others, theirs. -- Balok 16:29, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::::Only if we put performers not only in one or more of the final categories, but in the "parent categories" at the same time. This suggestion is even worse in my opinion, because it misuses categories to create lists. -- Cid Highwind 17:35, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) :::::::Yes, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear: I assumed that in the hierarchy, anything part of a lower level category would be part of the higher level categories as well. I don't see using categories to create lists as misuse; evidently, you and I hold different opinions on this point. Perhaps some other folks can offer their opinions. A proper performer entry should list the roles that individual performed. Remember, too, this is only one way to drill for the information. Nothing says we can't *also* have lists, if people support that approach. It seems to me the idea of a wiki is to organize information so that it can be found by any number of reasonable search approaches. What you find useless, someone else may find invaluable. Yes, there could be a lot of category pages, but such pages are implicitly very low maintenance, so why is that a problem? Is MA short on resources? -- Balok 21:09, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) ::::::(1) This is not the case - categories can be members of other categories (essentially subcategories), but their content is not automatically added to the parent category. If an article should appear in both, both categories have to be added to its category list. If we do this regularly, the category system will be broken fast - the created pages will only be lists, but no longer categories in the strictest sense. ::::::(2) Again, I'm not saying that "my" way of information retrieval is the only useful one. I asked for a proper explanation several times, and will do so again: When will a category "Series X season Y performer" be used, and why wouldn't a list also showing the roles at the same time be much more useful in that case? ::::::(3) The category system as a whole is definitely not "low maintenance". Sure, it's easy to create yet another category, but to have all of them work together in a meaningful way is not a trivial task. -- Cid Highwind 12:29, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) :::::::A very valid question. Also, I would like to suggest the following: as Mediawiki offers the option of adding information to a category page, we could simply combine Lists and categories on the same page. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 09:26, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) :::-- Cid Highwind 11:29, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) I never like the idea of the season guest actor lists myself anyway. That information is already on episode pages, and the (actually useful) recurring character pages. I do like the idea of building up a category system by working on one thing at a time, though. Performers, then ships, and so on. -- Steve 23:38, 20 Dec 2004 (CET) :I'm baffled by the number of arguments here based on "I don't find it usefull". The issue here is not what you find usefull, but what most users and/or editors in MA would find usefull. Perhaps we should try to find out what that is, before going in to the discussion whether or not something is usefull or not. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 09:26, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) ::I've been browsing Wikipedia, and have found numerous articles in 5+ categories, some of them subsections of others. Is there any reason this isn't "good" or is that a personal opinion? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel :::re:Redge: Well, how exactly do you find out what "most users/editors" find useful if not by each one of them telling you what he/she finds useful? -- Cid Highwind :::re:Mike: Obviously, "personal opinion" always plays a part - if there was some "objective truth" we wouldn't have this discussion right now. WikiPedia:Wikipedia talk:Categorization and the linked archive pages are a good read to see how controversial this system can become and why it is a good idea to discuss before implementing it. In this specific case, the problem is not that an article is listed in 5+ categories, it is the fact that an article is listed in 5+ performer categories which in my opinion and as mentioned before, is pure overkill and not especially useful. Please note that no one could explain how this categorization would be useful for "information retrieval" or why a list wouldn't be a much better way to access that information in this specific case. It might help bringing this discussion to an end if someone could provide that information. -- Cid Highwind :::Please also read WikiPedia:Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes, an article I just found. Many of the points mentioned there were brought up here as well: :::*"Is it possible to write a few paragraphs or more on the subject of a category, explaining it? If you go to the article from the category, will it be obvious why it's there? Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then a category is probably inappropriate." -- The answer to questions 1 and 3 seems to be "No"... :::*"An article will often be in several categories. Restraint should be used, however — categories become less effective the more there are on a given article." :::*"An article should not be in both a category and its subcategory" -- in that case, we would have to choose between "(TOS) performers" and "TOS season 1 performers". Im still convinced that, for the average reader, the first one is much more useful than the second one. :::*"Lists also have a substantial advantage over categories and series boxes in that they can be annotated. A list can include items that do not yet have an article." -- As mentioned earlier, all those categories would miss the annotation the existing lists have. Why not use a generic category "TOS performers" combined with "list(s) of season X performers", wouldn't that be the best of both worlds? :) :::-- Cid Highwind 21:18, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) Single categories List categories with existing "List of ..." article Suggesting whole category trees obviously leads to lengthy discussions. This is a necessary process, of course, but to get things started another parallel approach might be useful. My suggestion is the following: If a "List of X" already exists, and if this list is unannotated (just links to articles, no additional text for each entry, no pairs of links, etc.), then suggest the most generic form of this list as a new category below (for example, don't suggest "24th century starfleet personnel" or "inhabited planets" yet, just "starfleet personnel" (or "personnel"?) or "planets". You might want to add your opinion about possible sub- and super-categories, but those comments shouldn't be considered mandatory or obligatory yet. Each editor may vote on that suggestion: *'Agree' - No further comments necessary *'Disagree' - only if the suggested category violates the rules stated above or you want to suggest a better name, please comment on your reasons If, at least 5 days after your initial suggestion, there are no unresolved disagreements and at least one agreement, you may create the suggested category. For the moment, don't delete the original "List of X" article - this can be done later. -- Cid Highwind 23:08, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) Vote on this procedure Please sign in the appropriate subsection if you agree or disagree. If you disagree, give a reason. If, after 5 days, there's no unresolved disagreement and at least three people agree, this procedure should be considered accepted. :Procedure accepted after 5 days. -- Cid Highwind 00:21, 2004 Dec 28 (CET) Agree * Cid Highwind 23:08, 22 Dec 2004 (CET) * Mike, Kobi and EtaPiscium already supported some of the categories suggested below - I'd like to count that as an implicit agreement to this suggestion to get things started. Let me know if this is incorrect. -- Cid Highwind 12:32, 2004 Dec 26 (CET) Disagree category:Species Possible subs: sentient species, non-sentient, etc.. -- Redge | ''Talk'' 22:01, 27 Dec 2004 (CET) :I would suggest life-forms instead, since "species" is a rather specific biological term. I agree with the split into "sentient" and "non-sentient", and then the subgroups that have already been established for those two. -- EtaPiscium 00:29, 28 Dec 2004 (CET) ::Life-forms might be a rather inclusive topic. I'd like to see a bit finer granularity. But I do agree that 'life-form' is a better choice than 'species'. Inasmuch as there's no list right now, I'd recommend deferring this category until some of the list based ones are up and running, and we have some experience to build on. -- Balok 02:02, 28 Dec 2004 (CET) :Which existing "List of ..." article should be the basis of this category? Please link to it in your suggestion, as explained above. Otherwise, please move your suggestion to another section. Thanks. (Clarification: I '''disagree' with this suggestion for technical purposes. I tried to define a relatively strict procedure with a narrow focus to allow the "least controversial" list categories to pass quickly. For this suggestion to belong in this section (instead of "Category tree suggestions", for example) a generic "List of species" should exist, which IMO is not the case.) -- Cid Highwind 00:41, 2004 Dec 28 (CET) ::Oh, in that case I think it's premature to create this category, since it doesn't correspond to any current list. -- EtaPiscium 00:52, 28 Dec 2004 (CET) ::There are the "List of X Quadrant species" articles, but I agree that these aren't the easiest lists. I also vote premature. -- Harry 16:58, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) Category:Nebulae Content: All nebulae, see the list of nebulae. Should have the same supercategory as Category:Planets. -- Cid Highwind 12:54, 2005 Jan 4 (CET) *Support. -- EtaPiscium 22:32, 4 Jan 2005 (CET) Category:Star clusters or Category:Clusters Content: All star clusters, see the list of star clusters. Should have the same supercategory as Category:Planets and Category:Nebulae. If you agree, which one do you prefer?-- Cid Highwind 12:54, 2005 Jan 4 (CET) *Support. I like "Clusters" rather than "Star Clusters", 'cause not all the clusters are necessarily of stars (the Black Cluster, for instance. -- EtaPiscium 22:32, 4 Jan 2005 (CET) Category:Moons Content: All moons, see the list of moons. As above, should be listed in the same supercategory as Category:Planets and Category:Nebulae. -- Cid Highwind 14:47, 2005 Jan 4 (CET) *Support. -- EtaPiscium 22:32, 4 Jan 2005 (CET) *'Support''' -- Balok 03:00, 5 Jan 2005 (CET) Other single category suggestions Category:Episodes For all episodes of any series. Decision as to placing movies here or do the ten films deserve to be considered as episodes. Possible subs would be by series. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 17:06, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) :I don't see this as terribly useful. This is a case where I think we're better served by existing structures: the series and season pages. -- Steve 17:59, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) :I partly agree with Steve - one category for all episodes wouldn't be too useful in my opinion - I wouldn't object to Category:TOS episodes etc. though. In that case Category:Episodes could later be created as a supercategory for those 6 categories. Movies should have their own category, Category:Movies. -- Cid Highwind 19:57, 2005 Jan 2 (CET) :This category should contain five more categories: Category:Episode (TOS), Category:Episode (TNG), Category:Episode (DS9), Category:Episode (VOY) and Category:Episode (ENT); however no episode of any series should be placed within the supercategorie, it is simply not practically. -- Kobi 20:06, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) So are the following acceptable: *Category:TOS episodes *Category:TAS episodes *Category:TNG episodes *Category:DS9 episodes *Category:VGR episodes *Category:ENT episodes *Category:Movies ? -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 21:57, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) :Support - The series and season pages list the episodes according to those criteria. Someone looking by title would have more work to do, especially for the series that went seven seasons. A category for each series, with alphabetic order by title would get my vote. -- Balok 02:32, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) ::I moved this suggestion to a separate subsection, because it is a "bigger" suggestion somehow. Generally, I agree with this categorization - an alphabetical list of all episodes in one series, no categories for specific seasons, no episodes appearing in the supercategory "Episodes". I strongly object to "VGR episodes", though. We had this discussion before, it should be Category:VOY episodes. -- Cid Highwind 12:10, 2005 Jan 3 (CET) :::Agreed. "VOY" is the generally accepted abbreviation. -- Balok 19:15, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) ::::Generally accepted even though we have no VOY Season 7 but VGR Season 7 instead. All of our Voyager pages use VGR (List of VGR recurring character appearances, etc.) with the sole exception of the VOY and two other redirects using VOY. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 20:42, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) :::::VOY seems to be what they use in the directory structure over at http://www.startrek.com, for whatever that's worth... -- Balok 21:22, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) :::::This should probably be discussed somewhere else, but anyway: "Generally accepted" because not only the official Star Trek website startrek.com, but the majority of fans worldwide uses VOY, not VGR. Try googling for ("VGR" "Star Trek") and ("VOY" "Star Trek") - less than 10,000 hits using the first string, but over 180,000 using the second. Even on this site, the abbreviation VOY is used about as much as the abbreviation VGR - try "What links here" on both redirect pages. We should definitely have that sorted out before creating any categories using either "VOY" or "VGR"... -- Cid Highwind 21:28, 2005 Jan 3 (CET) :I agree that seasons are an abstract and essentially meaningless subdivision. But I don't know if I like alphabetical order. What about a sort key representing the correct order of episodes? Alternatively, I'd like to keep the lists of episodes per series in the series article, next to the category. Because I like to keep lists of episodes in airing order somewhere. -- Harry 13:10, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) ::I think this is the kind of thing best handled by a list, because I feel the alphabetic ordering of category keys will produce a bizarre looking page. Category pages seem structured to order keys alphabetically. A date based key work create some sort of numeric ordering, and not a particularly pretty one; you'd have to use an easily and correctly sorted format like '19670107' (January 7, 1967) to ensure a valid sort. Unless there are special date handling category tools I know nothing about. -- Balok 19:15, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) ::Yes, airing order should be kept somewhere, but it doesn't make any sense to have the category entries sorted by airdate, because the sort key itself doesn't appear in the listing. Besides, we already have complete and final lists sorted that way, so the categories would be completely redundant that way... -- Cid Highwind 13:19, 2005 Jan 3 (CET) :::Sorting by airdates is kinda silly.. I still don't understand, with the exception of Unification and Skin of Evil, why anyone would think the order that NBC or Viacom chose the episodes for airing has any kind of relevance superior to the chronological order of eps or production order -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 20:42, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) ::::There are already three pages that sort the episodes in production order, so these should be used for alphabetical sorting. Furthermore I object the creation of "VGR Episodes", because then it would need to be "EPR Episodes" as well. Also I still think you should go with the namingconventiones and name these "Category:Episode (SER)" (using singular version and Series Tag after) -- Kobi 21:23, 3 Jan 2005 (CET) ::I referred to "airdate order" above, but my point isn't to discuss "airdate" vs. "production" or "stardate" order - it's any chronological order vs. alphabetical order. Categories are sorted alphabetically by default and without any good possibility to change it. Sort keys can be used for minor corrections (for example using "Defector, The" to avoid having half of all episodes listed at 'T'), but not to chronologically list 180 entries. -- Cid Highwind 21:03, 2005 Jan 4 (CET) Category:Delphic Expanse This category would be more than a simple "list category" - instead, a category for everything that is related to the DE. This could include the article Delphic Expanse itself, an article about NX-01's mission there, but also all kind of things "inside" the DE, including species (Xindi, Triannon, ...), planets, systems, nebulae or objects such as the Delphic Expanse spheres. I'm suggesting this as a test to see if such "region categories" are viable - others could follow later, probably collected in a Category:Regions. -- Cid Highwind 13:07, 2005 Jan 4 (CET) :Support - This seems to be the sort of thing categories are good at: collecting all the articles relevant to some theme. -- Balok 02:56, 5 Jan 2005 (CET) Accepted categories These categories have been accepted. Discussion&vote were moved to their talk pages. *Category:Planets *Category:Sectors Maintenance categories We can use categories to help with the regular maintenance task of listing specific articles somewhere ("attention needed", "featured article" etc.) by creating a category and adding it to the relevant template. To test if this is a viable option, I would like to create Category:Memory Alpha featured articles to list featured articles - the page Memory Alpha:Featured Articles basically is an unannotated list. Any opinions/objections? -- Cid Highwind 14:26, 2005 Jan 2 (CET) :The problem with this is, that you would need to edit all the existing pages. When we created de:Kategorie:Stub by putting it into the message template, not one page appeared in there. They all needed to be edited at least one time. -- Kobi 14:33, 2 Jan 2005 (CET) ::I read about that problem on Wikipedia, but I think we would only have to do this once, to get started. Right? -- Cid Highwind 15:04, 2005 Jan 2 (CET) Category:Orphaned categories I created this category as a maintenance tool. All categories that are "accepted" but aren't part of a bigger tree yet should be categorized here for the moment, then removed later. -- Cid Highwind 01:28, 2005 Jan 2 (CET)